Christopher Paul Curtis
Author Image
Author Image

Christopher Paul Curtis was born in Flint, Michigan. For his first thirteen years after high school on the Flint's historic Fisher Body Plant #1 assembly line. His job entailed hanging car doors, and it left him with an aversion to getting into and out of large automobiles—particularly big Buicks.

Curtis's writing—and his dedication to it—has been greatly influenced by his family members, particularly his wife, Kaysandra. With grandfathers like Earl "Lefty" Lewis, a African American Baseball League pitcher, and 1930s bandleader Herman E. Curtis, Sr., of Herman Curtis and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression, it is easy to see were Christopher Paul Curtis got his inspiration to model the characters from Bud, Not Buddy.

His second novel, Bud, Not Buddy, is the first book ever to receive both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Author Award.

Christopher Paul Curtis and his wife, Kaysandra, have two children, Steven and Cydney.
After high school, he spent 13 years on the assembly line of the Fisher Body plant, hanging 80-pound car doors on Buicks (while attending college at night!). He wrote during his breaks to escape the noise of the factory.

Christopher took a year off from work to write The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963. He sat in the children's room of the Windsor Public Library and wrote in longhand. His son Steven typed his father's drafts into their computer and served as first reader.

Some of Christopher's hobbies are playing basketball, Collecting old record albums, and, of course, writing!

Page 3 - Characterazation

This page was made by Allison S.